Artist Keith Giffen and inker Scott Koblish have a style that is definitely and obviously influenced by Jack Kirby. In the first issue of Infinity Man and the Forever People, this style is heavily used to fantastic effect. Readers of the New 52 relaunch of OMAC that felt it was cancelled well before it’s time will find a lot to enjoy here. The first time the Forever People appeared was in 1971 in a book created by Jack Kirby that had close ties to his New Gods series of books, so it’s nice to see Giffen and Koblish paying tribute to Kirby in this brand new series.

Co-Publisher of DC Comics Dan DiDio takes on the writing of the Forever People and for the most part it’s an enjoyable tale that introduces us to the team and sets them up for their first adventure. Not only is the art reminiscent of Kirby’s bronze age DC style, but the writing is as well. DiDio does a great job of catering to the new reader as he cleverly uses caption boxes that display the thoughts of the electronic bio-engine named “Kirby” as the Forever People use a Boom Tube to travel to Earth. Time and panels are spent letting us know just who each character is, and a bit of a description about each one. Although there isn’t a lot of depth given in this first issue, the pacing moves along nicely despite having to introduce so many characters and settings.

As mentioned above, the art is evocative of Kirby’s so if you’re a fan of that style you should love this book. Giffen may have a bit rougher and quicker line to his work, but effects like “Kirby krackle”, shine-lines, and hand drawn sound effects are abundant in this issue. The character designs maintain the “Kirby designed” feel which makes the style of this book all that more enjoyable. The New 52 seemed to have made changes to many of DC’s most iconic characters just to make changes, many times to the detriment of the character. Here, the Kirby look is embraced and it works. This is a fun book that’s refreshing to see from DC. Series like these have proven not to last so far in the New 52, but I hope that this book breaks that trend and stays around for a long time.